Marked for Luís Fernandes
From our football correspondent
Steady
Boardroom3 May 2027
The instruction has come from upstairs rather than from the dugout, which is the version of this conversation no manager enjoys. Somebody in that squad is now available whether the man who picks the team thinks so or not.
Squad3 May 2027
“Some mornings you wake up and you are still a long way from everything you know.” It is not the football and it never was; Concordia Chiajna are dealing with a man who wants a different country.
Squad3 May 2027
Ivann Botella was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad3 May 2027
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Yohan Roche was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
Player ratings3 May 2027
Marked 7.79 on an afternoon he ran from the first whistle to the last. Whatever else went wrong, Concordia Chiajna had the best player on the pitch.
Squad3 May 2027
The manager has re-ordered his thinking and Paul-Henri Moussinga has come out of it lower. He will be told it is temporary, and the players who have heard that before will avoid his eye.
The dugout3 May 2027
The view from the dugout
“We controlled it. There were spells I did not like and we will look at them, but the group showed me something.” Cristian Iancu, on a 2‑1 win that he was already picking apart on the walk to the press room.
Boardroom3 May 2027
The accounts make uncomfortable reading. Wages first and ambition second is the order of business at Concordia Chiajna now.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad29 Mar 2027
Ivann Botella and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Luís Fernandes is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad29 Mar 2027
Words at Concordia Chiajna training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yohan Roche is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
The manager makes an example of Alain Zadi
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Boardroom29 Mar 2027
The accounts are being read more closely than the results. Wages before ambition is the order of business now, and the manager has been told so.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
Yohan Roche knocks on the manager's door
“It had gone on long enough. I would rather have it out than leave it sitting there.” Ten minutes behind a closed door at Concordia Chiajna, and both men came out saying it was fine.
Looking ahead29 Mar 2027
Every squad has one of these fixtures for somebody every season. This one is Alexandru Jipa’s: the club that knew him first, the supporters who will decide in the first minute whether to applaud, and Concordia Chiajna needing him to play as if none of it matters.
Market29 Mar 2027
Every press conference now starts and ends the same way: with Nicolae Carnat’s future. The manager has run out of new ways to say nothing.
The dugout29 Mar 2027
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad22 Feb 2027
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Concordia Chiajna this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad22 Feb 2027
Nicolae Carnat falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Boardroom22 Feb 2027
There is a figure at which a wage bill stops being ambitious and becomes the reason nothing else is possible, and this club has reached it. Nothing is left over for a transfer, a stand or a rainy afternoon.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 16. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings22 Feb 2027
The afternoon belonged to Mihai Bălaşa
A mark of 7.79, and nobody in the ground would argue with it. He was involved in everything that mattered and most of what did not.
Squad22 Feb 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Łukasz Józefczyk and Concordia Chiajna agree another 4 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Market22 Feb 2027
Luís Fernandes is 20, and Concordia Chiajna have signed him for the player he will be rather than the one he is. The first team can wait; the point of a deal like this is the years it buys.
The dugout22 Feb 2027
“The players deserve the credit. My job was easy today.” It was not, and everybody in the room knew it; after 1‑0, Cristian Iancu could afford to be generous.